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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23365816">When All Bets Are Off</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GamLamLudi/pseuds/GamLamLudi'>GamLamLudi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Friendship, Implied Yurileth, Mild Language, Mild Spoilers, Pre-Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:42:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,583</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23365816</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GamLamLudi/pseuds/GamLamLudi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Byleth noticed one day that Yuri and Balthus were watching combatants in the arena and betting without money over whom would win, interested she decided to join in their little game</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Yurileth - Relationship, Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc &amp; My Unit | Byleth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>When All Bets Are Off</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Byleth had been doing her rounds down in the abyss to check up on the ashen wolves when she found Yuri and Balthus debating over something in the arena.</p><p>“So, which one do you think will win this time Balthus?” Yuri asked with a glint in his eyes.</p><p>“Hmmmm….” Balthus looked at both the combatants.</p><p>“What are you two doing?” She asked.</p><p>“Hello Professor, which combatant would you choose?” Yuri smiled sweetly at her, she could always see through the smile, it was a pleasant looking mask but a mask none the less.</p><p>She looked over to the two combatants, one was a War Master and the other was an assassin with barely a knife for a weapon.</p><p>“I’m gonna place my bets on the sinewy guy this time!” Balthus stated after a long audible contemplation. Byleth was still silent looking between the two before she finally nodded.</p><p>“The war master.” She stated in her usual nonchalant tone.  Balthus laughed, he and Yuri had already had this conversation about appearances aren’t always what they seem.</p><p>“Would you like to join in on the bets that we place?” Yuri asked, she noticed a stark change in the glint in his eye, one she’s seen too many times in people that believe they will achieve victory.</p><p>“No, the money I use is too important to spend on this kind of past-time.” She replied.</p><p>“We don’t play for money professor, just information.” Yuri laughed at the notion of betting money with her, it was surprisingly an authentic one.</p><p>“Sure.” She stated, “I’ll bet information on the War Master.”</p><p>“Excellent, then I’ll bet on the Assassin.” Yuri replied. The battle ensued between the two combatants, the Assassin began his strikes both with a combination of magic and speed, the War Master could take quite the hit.</p><p>“The War Master will win.” Byleth replied, Yuri looked slightly surprised at her blatant statement.</p><p>“Are you sure about that professor?” She nodded silently, not even turning to look at Yuri.</p><p>“Watch.” The War Master swung his axe around in a fashion that was not akin to a fighter, instead he slammed it onto the ground causing the ground below to split and fire to billow from below. Though the Assassin was quick, the sheer force of the explosions caught him off his footing resulting in a gnarly burn striking up the side of his leg.</p><p>“The crusher wins!” The announcer bellowed as the crowd cheered loudly.</p><p>“See.”</p><p>“I guess we both lost Balthus.” Yuri sighed, “So what made you think he was going to be the victor?”</p><p>“He had magical talent and wore magic resistant armor.”</p><p>“So you can sense magical abilities then?” Yuri asked.</p><p>“Something like that.” Byleth had come to learn recently that her skills in tactics weren’t common place, though her father had the same abilities, it turned out even the most refined mages couldn’t tell the exact magical skillsets of their enemies, she could see skills and the individuals overall capabilities at a simple glance, the big guy definitely wanted to make sure his magical prowess was not the first thing people saw about him. “Regardless, you said victor gets information?”</p><p>“Yeah, and you won fair and square.” She wouldn’t exactly count her unnatural abilities as “fair and square” but she’d take it.</p><p>“What’s your name Yuri.” She asked, it had been a question she had asked twice before.</p><p>“This again?” He gave a heavy sigh, “My name is off-topic for this stuff.”</p><p>“I’m curious too, he’s never told me.” Balthus replied, giving her an “I have already asked this many times before with no results” expression.</p><p>“and you badger me twice as much as anyone else about that Balthus.” Yuri was visibly annoyed at this point.</p><p>“Fine, Balthus what was the worst case of debt you’ve ever gotten?”</p><p>“Not sure I’ve told you this one but Investing in the Finest Fearghus goat cheeses.” He gave her a massive cocksure grin, “Turns out most nobles outside of Fearghus are not fond of the stuff.”</p><p>“Why not just regular cows cheese?” she asked.</p><p>“Too expensive and competitive, the mountain goats of Fearghus have milk that’s considered a delicacy…. in Fearghus.” She was almost too afraid how much debt he got into by trying to sell goats cheese to nobles. “Also, to avoid purchasing the five thousand golds worth for each wheel of cheese, I got a friend to make knockoffs for just a hundred gold each. Sadly, Some bratty noble realized I was making counterfeits and well...’</p><p>“you got fined.” She finished his sentence for him, she feared it was something like that.</p><p>“Yup, fifty-thousand gold for each wheel of cheese, for the noble that I sold twelve of the wheels, and the original business for counterfeiting their stuff.” He was a little too proud of himself.</p><p>“Sounds like a bad business plan.” She replied in her usual emotionless tone.</p><p>“It was.” He grimaced just a little.</p><p>“So professor you want to go for another round?” Yuri gave another smile, this time it reached his eyes. </p><p>“Sure.” She shrugged as they proceeded to watch five rounds.</p><p>“Damn professor, you succeeded at guessing each one, why can’t you just pick first?” Balthus asked, clearly accruing his fair share of losses. </p><p>“If she did that, we’d pretty much know the victor.” Something about the way he spoke that caused her to suspect he thought she was either incredibly good at guessing or she was rigging it.</p><p>“That’s not always for certain.” Byleth shook her head, “The last pair to match both had potential to succeed.”</p><p>“Fine last one then, winner takes all, and they can ask any question.” Balthus gave a huge grin.</p><p>“Sure.” Byleth replied.</p><p>“I guess you’re feeling pretty lucky Balthus.” Yuri gave a wry smile.</p><p>“This time though the professor goes first.”</p><p>Byleth wasn’t surprised, Balthus tended to show his hand before following through with it. She looked between the contestants. In what felt like forever she finally settled on a decision, “The sniper.”</p><p>“Then I take the sniper too.” Balthus gave a cheesy grin.</p><p>“I guess I’ll go with the Wyvern Rider.” Yuri shot a look at Balthus. The battle ensued, the first action the wyvern rider took was to dismount immediately, then proceeded to barrage the sniper with spells from miasma to banshee.</p><p>“Professor… are you messing with me?” Balthus gave her a betrayed look.</p><p>“The two were pretty much evenly matched, the possibility that the wyvern rider would have dismounted immediately was a potential option but not one I expected him to employ right off the bat.” She replied, she knew it could have gone either way really, they were the closest match, so the potential of luck and cunning was more important than skill.</p><p>“So that means I win then?” Yuri seemed almost surprised that the wyvern rider succeeded, given that Byleth was often cautious about classifying her own students as wyvern riders due to the general magical and arrow weakness.</p><p>“You won, fair and square.” She threw his words back at him.</p><p>“Alright then professor, tell us something you’d think we’d never believe.” He beamed at her, apparently winning, even if by chance got him pretty excited to hear about the ever-so elusive professor.</p><p>“I don’t have a heartbeat.” She replied, she knew by dorothea's reaction to her initial statement regarding that it wasn’t something most people would believe.</p><p>The two of them looked at her in complete disbelief, “Professor…”</p><p>She then unfolded her arms, “you can hear for yourself too.”</p><p>“Ah, I get it, you’re just trying to flirt with us professor.” Balthus laughed, Byleth could detect a slight blush from Yuri’s cheeks. “Nice try." </p><p>It was just like Dorotha, with a sigh she conceded to the fact that living without a heartbeat just wasn’t going to believable even when it was true. “I was joking yes; no the real one is that I saved a fellow merc’s life by winning an eating contest.”</p><p>“Ya know…. Somehow that’s believable.” Balthus replied, “Not the saving the mercs life, but given how much you can pack away.”</p><p>“Balthus!” Yuri gave him a stern frown.</p><p>“It’s true.” Byleth replied nonchalantly, Yuri didn’t know how to respond to that, the fact that she just confirmed that she can inhale her food wasn’t something most women admitted to.</p><p>“Yeah she just has a healthy appetite, it’s refreshing from the rest of the girls that pretend they don’t eat their fair share of food. Plus she runs around all the time, she’s gotta need some fuel in her system for that.”</p><p>“Indeed, I didn’t start eating until about four years ago.” Food never called to her until she started dreaming about Sothis, it was also around that time when she began remembering her life, most of it was a blur prior to that moment. Usually Jeralt had to tell the other mercs that she was shy about eating food in front of people not that she had little to no instinct to eat.</p><p>The first time she did actually eat something shocked him so much he dropped his fork, partially because she ate for the first time in her life, but also because it was raw moose meat they had collected the day before. After that day however she slowly became a munching machine, few knew where she was able to put away all the food.  </p><p>“That’s not even a funny joke Professor.”</p><p>“You’re right, it’s not.” She gave them a small but almost sad smile. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Based loosely on yuri and balthus' support convo's</p></blockquote></div></div>
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